Larry Jeram-Croft
Author
The Jacaranda Trilogy
The Caribbean in two different ages
The Windward and Leeward Islands of the Caribbean. Playground to the rich. However, there is something very unusual out to the west. The locals know but seldom talk about it. Jack Vincent and his superyacht ‘Jacaranda’ stumble on the secret and he and his crew learn the truth. They rescue a man from the past and attempt to take him home, over two hundred years back in time.
Set in the present day and the time of Nelson, ‘Jacaranda’ mixes these two worlds in an adventure story that reaches its climax just as one of the Caribbean’s worst natural disasters occurs.
What would you say, if invited to dinner by Captain Horatio Nelson?
Jack Vincent and his girlfriend Emma return to England to help British Government Scientists to understand what they had learned by travelling back in time. The cause is known but not understood. It was due to a wartime experiment that failed. They are asked to go back again at the next opportunity to try to recover material from the ship that disappeared.
Once again, Jacaranda returns to the past but is almost wrecked in a hurricane and due to a miscalculation, arrives off Guadeloupe in 1794 at the height of the Reign of Terror, which has just arrived in the Caribbean. Rescued by their old friend Charles the Earl of Hinchfield, they become caught up in events as Guadeloupe falls to the French.
Paul Smythe has survived the volcano eruption in Martinique but has no memory of his previous life. He marries and settles down as a sugar plantation owner only to become a reluctant double agent for the British. His wife, Francine, is taken hostage by the French to guarantee his behaviour, just as he is reunited with his old friends from the future.
Paul helps them thwart the French attempt to retake Martinique and this gives them the opportunity to attempt to rescue his wife.
The story is based on the true events of 1794 when the Guillotine was brought to the Caribbean to support the revolution.
1805, the year Napoleon plans to invade England and the year Jacaranda and her crew have to return to in order to rescue Smithy the scientist, whose experiments have sent him back to England of the past. They meet up with their friends Charles and Melissa as well as Sir Sydney Smith, a renowned naval officer and Robert Fulton the man who invented the world’s first workable submarine, the Nautilus. However, nothing is simple and in order to return to their future they must sail Jacaranda to Cadiz where the combined French and Spanish fleets are sheltering. Here they must help Sir Sydney to entice the French out to sea where Nelson’s fleet is waiting. Many of the French also want the confrontation and with the aid of the Nautilus a daring raid on Cadiz harbour is undertaken.
Once again the story is based on real events and characters of the time.
